JMSC students and alumni have won a raft of honours at the prestigious 19th Annual Human Rights Press Awards in both the student and the general sections.

This year was the first time the Awards included a student category, and JMSC students won five of the eight awards in the category, including the top three. JMSC alums took two professional awards in the general section.

The director of the JMSC, Professor Ying Chan, said the outstanding results were a testament to the hard work the winners had put into producing news material for publication in the real world.

“I am extremely proud that the good work of so many of our past and present students has been recognised. The large number of awards reflects the breadth of talent the JMSC attracts and fosters,” she said.

“These achievements are also a testament to the JMSC’s educational philosophy and the quality of learning that is taking place at the school: hands-on reporting, writing and multi-media production, guided by the values of fairness and accuracy, while striving at all times for the highest professional standards.”

The list of awards and winners from the JMSC is as follows:

“The Umbrella Movement: Epilogue”, a documentary filmed by a group of nine MJ’s for US TV channel MSNBC, won one of the two Student English Grand Prizes. JMSC students Lukas Messmer, Joyce Liu, Jane Li, Amel Semmache, Cal Wong, Vanessa Ma, Vicky Wong and Hiram Liu, and exchange student Filippo Ortona, produced and directed the documentary. The documentary grew out of the course on video news production taught by JMSC Associate Professor Kevin Sites, who served as an advisor to the project.

“China’s Factory Girls Have Grown up – and are Going on Strike”, an article published in Quartz, Atlantic Media’s online news outlet, won the other Student English Grand Prize. The article was written by current MJ’s Coco Feng and Jane Li, and JMSC alum Echo Hui.

“Voices from Tiananmen” a multimedia production for which JMSC alum Patrick Boehler served as writer, won an English Online Merits award in the general category. Boehler, formerly of the South China Morning Post, has moved on to serve as digital editor in the Hong Kong Bureau of the International New York Times.

Gloria Cheung, JMSC Bachelor of Journalism 2015, won the Student Essay Contest for an essay on the Edward Snowden documentary, Citizenfour.

The Annual Human Rights Press Awards are organised by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club, Hong Kong Amnesty International and the Hong Kong Journalists Association, to recognise outstanding reporting in the area of human rights. The full list of awards and further details can be found here.

Almost daily, we’re reminded the world is a dangerous place: earthquakes in Nepal, riots in Baltimore, the Islamic State in the Middle East, religious persecution in Myanmar. So how do today’s journalists tell the stories of our violent world in ways that are both relevant to us, regardless of where we live, but also move us to empathy rather than paralyzing us with despair?